Core of Federal Meat and Poultry Inspection Hasn’t Been Updated Since 1906

❝ For many high school students in the United States—myself included—Upton Sinclair’s novel The Jungle has been required reading. The book exposed health hazards and unsanitary practices in the American meatpacking industry and played a pivotal role in the enactment of the Federal Meat Inspection Act of 1906. Central to this federal oversight system were government inspectors, which for the first time had to be present in slaughterhouses and processing plants to ensure the safety of the produced food.

These inspectors play an important role, not only to protect food safety but also to detect animal diseases, such as classical swine fever or foot-and-mouth disease. To ensure safe foods, inspectors seek to keep the animals that are unfit for human consumption out of the food supply and verify that the slaughter operation has systems in place to minimize contamination that results in human illness.

❝ When the current meat and poultry oversight system was developed more than a century ago, it aimed to detect the most significant food safety risks at the time, such as tuberculosis, brucellosis, and trichinellosis, using the technologies available then. Inspectors had to rely primarily on their senses of sight, smell, and touch to determine whether an animal was infected. Luckily, these diseases — which today are no longer among the top food safety risks in the United States — were detectable in that way. This, however, is not the case for the diseases that currently present major foodborne hazards — such as Salmonella, Shiga toxin-producing E. coli, and Campylobacteria…

To improve protection, the U.S. Department of Agriculture should better align its inspections with the risks posed to human health, a determination that should be made based on a range of relevant factors, including the particular animals slaughtered, products produced, and food facilities involved.

Mail me a penny postcard when our Fake President and the Congressional Clown Show gets this done!

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Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI) on Wednesday called on President Donald Trump to withdraw his nomination of Sam Clovis to oversee the Department of Agriculture’s research section.
“For Donald Trump to nominate and to advocate for Senate confirmation of someone with views as backwards as Mr. Clovis’s, is not only a signal to the darkest and most evil forces in this country to carry on, but a clear as day message to the world that this administration continues to tolerate hate,” the senators said in a statement.
They cited “the extremist views Mr. Clovis has expressed and the racist conspiracy theories he has stoked.”
“President Trump should withdraw the Clovis nomination immediately,” they said. “Not only because he is a proud ‘skeptic’ of climate change and wildly unqualified for the position of USDA Chief Scientist – but also as a gesture to the American people that this administration is serious about rooting out the most hateful voices in our society.”http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/schumer-schatz-call-for-trump-to-dump-sam-clovis
Also: “President Trump’s Pick for Top USDA Scientist is Likely Illegal” https://lawnewz.com/opinion/president-trumps-pick-for-top-usda-scientist-might-be-illegal/
Samuel H. Clovis Jr. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_H._Clovis_Jr.